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Heinz Von Foerster, a Second Order Cybernetician

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Heinz Von Foerster, a Second Order Cybernetician Heinz Von Foerster, A Second Order Cybernetician Stuart A. Umpleby The George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 lt is a pleasure to introduce this issue of Cyber­ 1949. ln those days of rejuvenation, he returned to netics Forum dedicated to my triend and mentor, the old riddle of the nature of the observer. With Heinz Von Foerster. As the following articles demon­ the encouragement of the psychiatrists Victor Frank! strate, Heinz is a man who inspires not only and Otto Potzl, he published a short monograph on admiration and respect for his scientific contribu­ a quantum mechanical theory of physiological tions but also great affection. He is an outstanding memory. During a visit to the United States he met human being as weil as a great scientist. The Warren McCulloch who not only had the data for his articles by Stafford Beer, Gordon Pask, Humberto theory of memory but who also introduced him to Maturana, Lars Lofgren, Edwin Schlossberg and the campus at urbana. Kenneth Wilson often recount personal experiences Through McCulloch, at conferences about Cyber· with Heinz. Kenneth Wilson provides a very useful netics: Circular Causa! and Feedback Mechanisms in overview of Heinz' major articles as weil as the work Biological and Social Systems sponsored by the of visiting cyberneticians in the Biological Computer Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, he met the people who Laboratory. laid the conceptual foundation for understanding the I shall provide some background on how Heinz really complicated systems-teleological systems came to the University of lllinois, a briet discussion and self-organizing systems. The people attending of the effect that the Biological Computer Labaratory these conferences included Gregory Bateson, Julian had on the students who worked there, and finally Bigelow, Margaret Mead, John Von Neumann, some personal reflections on the importance of Norbert Wiener and Ross Ashby. Heinz was so fas­ Heinz' work for cybernetics, science, and society. cinated by the ideas that emerged at these meetings that after seven years of research at the University of lllinois in microwave tubes and ultra-highspeed oscillography, he went on sabbatical leave to learn The Years Before lllinois more about the neurophysiology of his enigmatic observer. After one year under the tutelage of Heinz has been a central figure in the field of Warren McCulloch at MIT and Arturo Rosenblueth in cybernetics since its beginning. During his student Mexico 'he returned to the University of lllinois and days he became involved with the Vienna Circle, a established the Biological Computer Labaratory to group of philosophers that included Wittgenstein, study computational principles in living organisms.(1) Schlick, Menger and Carnap. From them he devel­ oped an interest in the fundamental difference between the world as it is and its symbolic repre­ The Biological Computer Labaratory sentation in language or equati0ns. He wanted to Almost from the beginning it was apparent that learn more about the observer. However, the war the Biological Computer Labaratory (BCL) was not intervened and he spent those years in various labo­ an ordinary university research group. One of the ratories in Germany working on plasma physics and most amusing episodes in the history of BCL was microwave electronics. Luckily he survived the war the series of events that led up to Heinz's being unscathed in mind or body. After the war he helped mentioned in the cartoon strip Pogo, a distinction set up the first post-war radio station in Vienna and for scientists even rarer than the Nobel Prize. (see was in charge of its science and art program until Figure 1) Someone at the National Institute of 4 A Second Order Cybernetician >- 4i ::.:: -0 3 ..a>- ;0. ' 0 $i! C> 0 ~ Cl. >- 4i ::.:: .:: 0 3 ..a>- 0 C> 0 a.. 0 C> 0 Q. Figure 1. References to the Doomsday article in the Pogo comic strip. Health wanted a mathematical model of the popula­ article. tion dynamics of white blood corpuscles. Heinz be­ There followed one of the most entertaining ex­ came interested in the dynamics of populations, both changes of letters ever to appear in Science. The those whose elements interact and those with idea that the human population could through com­ elements that do not interact. He figured that data munication form a coalition and engage in a game on human population growth would be the most against nature was a particularly troubling idea. One complete set of data for a population with elements demographer called attention to the widely accepted capable of communication. The result was an article view that industrialization reduces rather than in Science in 1960 by Heinz Von Foerster, Patricia increases population. Heinz and his colleagues Mora and Lawrence Amiot called "Doomsday: Friday, pointed out that if an inverse relationship between 13 November, A.D. 2026."(2) They found that the population and technological know-how is applied to equation which best fit the data was not an expo­ the human population over the last couple of mil­ nential but rather a hyperbolic equation. There is a lennia then either Stone Age man was a technologi­ major difference. lf population is an exponential cal wizard who carefully removed his technological function of time, population will become very !arge achievements so as not to upset his inferior progeny as time increases, but within limited time the popu­ or our population has dwindled from a once astro­ lation will remain finite. A hyperbolic function, how­ nomical size to the mere three billions of today.(3) ever, has asymptotes. That is, there will be a time at The BCL equation turned out to be considerably which population will go to infinity. Applying the more accurate than other forecasts in predicting method of least squares to parameterize the equa­ world population in 1970. The others were more con­ tion led to the date 2027, hence the title of the servative. However, 1975 data suggests that world Cybernetics Forum 5 population has moved ahead of even the SCL would discover that A is better off if S is better oft. equation.(4) Events have tended to follow these predictions. ln ln addition to research the Siological Computer 1968, Paul Erlich published The Population Bomb, Laboratory also had a significant impact on the stu­ and gradually people became more aware of rapidly dents at the University. On even the largest college increasing population and the impossibility of sus­ campuses there is usually a small group of students taining the high growth rate for very long.(7) The who are innovators in campus activities. They are 1970's brought greater attention to global communi­ the students who write for the campus newspaper cations-satellites, television, computer networks­ and Iead political or reform movements. These stu­ and also revelations about the covert activities of dents usually know each other, and they often can the CIA and the FSI. ln 1975 documents were made be found in special project courses with the most public which showed that during World War II the stimulating faculty members. At the University of Allies were able to Iisten to the message traffic of Michigan the Mental Health Research Institute with the German and Japanase high commands.(8) Alan James G. Miller, Anatol Rapoport, Kenneth Soulding Turing was a central figure in this work. lt was no and Richard L. Meier was a focus of innovative accident that World War II was such a successful activity. Tom Hayden and Carl Oglesby were stu­ war for the United States. This new perspective on dents of Kenneth Soulding. Soulding has said that World War II helps to explain the interest of the Students for a Demooratic Society was born in his intelligence agencies in cybernetics research. The living room as a result of a seminar in economics. achievement of Heinz's third prediction-people will The Siological Computer Laboratory served a similar realize that A is better oft when S is better off-lies function at the University of lllinois. Over the years in the future. While there is increasing attention Heinz's students produced a Whole University Cata­ being paid to international development, the arms logue, a book on Metagames, an Ecological Source­ race continues and national and ethnic rivalries per­ book, and a large volume on the Cybernetics of sist. One hopeful sign is that a national commission Cybernetics. has been set up to study the possibility of estab­ lt is easy to understand why there was always a lishing a National Peace Academy. Since the U.S. feeling of excitement around SCL once one under­ now has several military academies devoted to stands Heinz's views on education. Heinz notes that teaching people how to win wars, it seems appropri­ most of contemporary education is designed to ate to have at least one academy devoted to teach­ make students react to a question in exactly the ing people how to resolve disputes short of war. same way. Tests are given to determine how suc­ ln about 1974, I mentioned to Heinz the three pre­ cessful the system has been at making the student dictions he had made a decade earlier. He had for­ a completely predictable member of society. The gotten about them, and he attached little signifi­ higher the score, the more predictable the student. cance to them. He said he had put them together ln other words the purpose of education is to turn a short while before a talk because he thought they nontrivial systems into trivial systems. Heinz, follow­ would amuse the audience. Sut for me, those three ing Herbert Srun, defines an illegitimate question to predictions remain an example of Heinz's depth of be one for which the answer is known.
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